Obama’s latest push features a familiar strategy

With his victory, Obama has the political capital to push through an immigration bill. | AP Photo

White House press secretary Jay Carney echoed Obama’s remarks Thursday, again using for the same language on immigration the White House used to press Republicans on the budget during the shutdown standoff: the claim that there are enough votes in the House to pass the Senate’s bill now, if only it could come to a vote.

“When it comes to immigration reform … we’re confident that if that bill that passed the Senate were put on the floor of the House today, it would win a majority of the House,” Carney said. “And I think that it would win significant Republican votes.”

Text Size

-

+

reset

Before the resolution of the shutdown and default standoff, Carney was more circumspect about the prospect of immigration reform passing the House. Earlier in the week, Carney wouldn’t venture a guess about whether the White House believes a new immigration push from the president would actually work.

“Congress is a difficult institution to make predictions about,” Carney said Wednesday. “Our view is simply that it’s the right thing to do, and we’re going to push for it.”

The earlier assessment reflects the tough reality: over on Capitol Hill, the Republicans forced to accept the fiscal deal on Obama’s terms are hardly in the mood to give the president another political victory.

Speaker John Boehner’s spokesman said House Republicans will stick with a piecemeal approach to immigration reform.

“The speaker remains committed to a common sense, step-by-step approach that ensures we get immigration reform done right,” spokesman Brendan Buck said Thursday. “That’s why the committees of the House continue to work on this important issue.”

Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho), who quit the House immigration group, said there’s no chance of a bicameral reform bill getting to Obama.

“I think it would be crazy for the House Republican leadership to enter into negotiations with him on immigration,” Labrador said Wednesday. “I think what he has done over the last two and half weeks, he’s trying to destroy the Republican Party and I think that anything we negotiate right now with the president on immigration will be with that same goal in mind, which is to destroy the Republican Party and not to get good policies.”

And Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) called it “unthinkable” that Obama would press his immigration push so soon after the fiscal crises.

“All over the country, Americans are struggling to find work,” Sessions said. “It is unthinkable that the president would continue to lobby Congress on behalf of special interests in order to double the flow of immigrant workers into the country, as bills in both the House and Senate propose.”

It is exactly that sort of say-no attitude among Republicans that the White House has signaled it will highlight in its immigration push.

Obama himself said there won’t always be agreements, but in his repeated praise for “reasonable Republicans,” he made clear that he will continue to point to conservative and tea party-affiliated Republicans as the impediment to the progress he seeks — and pushing GOP lawmakers on this issue, as he did in the recent fiscal fights, to sign on to some version of the Senate’s latest compromise.

“We all know that we have divided government right now,” Obama said Thursday. “There’s a lot of noise out there, and the pressure from the extremes affect how a lot of members of Congress see the day-to-day work that’s supposed to be done here.”